I will argue against the ability of science to demonstrate that belief in God is unreasonable. I will do this by showing that science cannot even answer the simple question of where do its laws come from and how did they come into being. If science cannot even answer this simple question how it hope to answer the much more difficult question of is there a God. As science cannot answer the question of whether or not God exists it cannot make belief in God unreasonable. Science is limited in its scope therefor there are questions it cannot answer. The origin of its own laws is one of these questions as is the existence of God.
II
1. If science demonstrates that belief in God's existence is unreasonable, then science can explain the origin of the fundamental laws of the universe.
2. Science does not explain the origin of the fundamental laws of the universe.
3. So, science does not demonstrate that belief in God's existence is unreasonable.
If science cannot explain the origin of the laws which are the foundation for all of hypothesis and theorems this gives rise to truth that there are things which are outside the scope of natural science. If there are things outside of the scope of natural science then science cannot claim make belief in God unreasonable as God could be one of the things outside of the scope of science.
III
First we need to define what we mean by the laws of science. These include the laws of physics, the laws of mathematics, the laws of chemistry, and the laws of biology. Things like sociology, psychology, and philosophy are all outside of the scope of natural laws. Scope can be defined as the area of influence over which the laws of nature can be used. For example the law of gravity can be used to determine ...
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...s originate therefore it cannot demonstrate that belief in God is unreasonable. By not being able to answer the question of where its laws come from it has shown there are things outside of its scope. As God could be something that is outside of the scope of science then belief in God cannot be seen as unreasonable.
Works Cited
1. Sikkema, Arnold E. 2007. "Laws of Nature and God's Word for Creation'." Fideles 27-43.
2. Gilson, Tom. 2011. "Did God create the laws of physics? from the Secular Daily News." Thinking Christian. May 4. http://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2011/05/did-god-create-the-laws-of-physics-secular-news-daily/.
3. Stenger, Victor J. 1997. "Intelligent Design: Humans, Cockroaches, and the Laws of Physics." The Talk Origins Archive. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html.
4. Sikkema, Arnold E. 2011. "The Grand Design." Book Reviews 132-133.
The claims of rationality and the so-called scientific approach of the atheists and agnostics have been debunked. In the coming pages we shall see that both in the creation of the universe, in things created within the universe and in the creation of living beings, an intelligently designed process is going on, and we shall demonstrate that the objections of agnostics and skeptics to this assertion are merely delusions.
There are some theories that science cannot prove. Science explains all of the logical and natural things in life through observation and experimentation. Religion explains all of the spiritual and mystical things in life. Religion is the belief and worshipping of a supernatural force like God. Jane Goodall is an outlier in the science industry. She believes in God and is also a scientist. Most scientists are only agnostic or atheists. Scientists only have one viewpoint. They only think logically and try to prove the existence of things. Religious people believe in a higher power that created everything and control everything. Jane Goodall has the perfect philosophy. When science is the only “window” someone bases their life on, there are drawbacks because there are a lot of things science cannot explain, logically. When religion is the only “window” someone bases their life on, there are drawbacks because there are a lot of things religion cannot explain, spiritually. When a person bases their life on both science and religion, more mysteries are answered. When both science and religion is part of a person’s philosophy, there are no drawbacks because they either support each other’s claims, do not explain each other, or supports one but not the
The Proof of the Existence of God There are many arguments that try to prove the existence of God. In this essay I will look at the ontological argument, the cosmological. argument, empirical arguments such as the avoidance of error and the argument from the design of the. There are many criticisms of each of these that would say the existence of God can’t be proven that are perhaps.
Imagine a world where many people are not born the way they are just by chance, but by design. Not a design by a god but by men. What is one of the most common science fiction topics? Well thanks to scientific advancement people can start moving cloning more into science and less into fiction. Thanks to the impeccable work of many scientists across the world the world is moving forward in many ways. But it begs the question, what limits do politicians have to place on science? Is best to let them have free reign over their domain, as politicians have on their own, or do they need to be tethered? Because of the advancements in communications, the world culture is becoming less and less divisible, so anything in one country effects the rest of the world more and more every day. What is coming in the future, and is the human race overstepping its boundaries? There are many concerns to be faced in the future that are coming.
The "Intelligent Design" pbs.org. PBS, 5 Aug. 2005. Web. The Web. The Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
John Polkinghorne’s The Universe as Creation does its best to not convince the reader of Intelligent Design, but rather to dissuade the reader from the notion that although the is intelligently designed, but in this way, it has made science possible.
Throughout history, conflicts between faith and reason took the forms of religion and free thinking. In the times of the Old Regime, people like Copernicus and Galileo were often punished for having views that contradicted the beliefs of the church. The strict control of the church was severely weakened around the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Old Regime ended. As the church's control decreased, science and intellectual thinking seemed to advance. While the people in the world became more educated, the church worked harder to maintain its influential position in society and keep the Christian faith strong. In the mid-nineteenth century, the church's task to keep people's faith strong became much harder, due to theories published by free thinkers like Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, David Friedrich Strauss, and others. These men published controversial theories that hammered away at the foundation on which the Christian church was built. As the nineteenth century progressed, more doubts began to arise about the basic faiths of the Christian church.
Many atheists have used science as a way to disapprove the existence of God. Science is not an accurate way of disapproving the existence of God(2). Scient...
Religious explanation is much different than scientific and philosophical explanation and when misunderstood can have a great conflict. Religious explanation does not originate from observation or logical deduction, but from belief of there being knowledge we don’t know of a higher being(s) who make and sometimes control us humans and the universe which we live. Religious explanation is where some of the first philosophical claims originat...
At first glance, many facets of science and religion seem to be in direct conflict with each other. Because of this, I have generally kept them confined to separate spheres in my life. I have always thought that science is based on reason and cold, hard facts and is, therefore, objective. New ideas have to be proven many times by different people to be accepted by the wider scientific community, data and observations are taken with extreme precision, and through journal publications and papers, scientists are held accountable for the accuracy and integrity of their work. All of these factors contributed to my view of science as objective and completely truthful. Religion, on the other hand, always seems fairly subjective. Each person has their own personal relationship with God, and even though people often worship as a larger community with common core beliefs, it is fine for one person’s understanding of the Bible and God to be different from another’s. Another reason that Christianity seems so subjective is that it is centered around God, but we cannot rationally prove that He actually exists (nor is obtaining this proof of great interest to most Christians). There are also more concrete clashes, such as Genesis versus the big bang theory, evolution versus creationism, and the finality of death versus the Resurrection that led me to separate science and religion in my life. Upon closer examination, though, many of these apparent differences between science and Christianity disappeared or could at least be reconciled. After studying them more in depth, science and Christianity both seem less rigid and inflexible. It is now clear that intertwined with the data, logic, and laws of scien...
“We tend to assume that religion is a question of what we believe or don’t believe. It’s an assumption with a long history in philosophy, which has been reinforced in recent years by the dull debate of atheism” (Gray 1). Science has given us many benefits, so many that it would be hard just to name them. The only problem is science can’t save the human species from itself. Science inquiry is probably one of the best methods we have today for figuring out how the world works. “As of now, we know a lot more than we ever have and what we know will only increase as time goes by, actually if we know anything it’s that our current theories are filled with errors and that we will still continue to use those theories to until we find a better alternative” (Grey 1) Science isn’t about belief anymore then religion is. “Religion is then not fundamentally different from science; both are like attempts to frame true beliefs about the world. That way of thinking tends to see science and religion as rivals, and it then becomes tempting to conclude that there’s no longer any need for religion” (Grey 1). If science produces theories that we can use without believing them, religion is just a bunch of gathering myths. Point intended you don’t have to believe a theory is true in order to use it. Just like you don’t have to believe a story is true for it to give a special meaning to your life. In other words, to believe in religion and to have faith in the things that you can’t see is completely up to you. Precisely, religion is a powerful tool for peace and enlightenment, but a negative tool when used for manipulation. To achieve peace, we must first submit to the unknown, and eliminate all negative intentions through religion. Religion not only affects someone’s way of thinking, but it affects our decision making ability and exactly how we choose to make that decision. In addition, you can relate the way religion is used in novels and the way
Up until the Enlightenment, mankind lived under the notion that religion, moreover intelligent design, was most likely the only explanation for the existence of life. However, people’s faith in the church’s ideals and teachings began to wither with the emergence of scientific ideas that were daringly presented to the world by great minds including Galileo and Darwin. The actuality that there was more to how and why we exist, besides just having an all-powerful creator, began to interest the curious minds in society. Thus, science began to emerge as an alternative and/or supplement to religion for some. Science provided a more analytical view of the world we see while religion was based more upon human tradition/faith and the more metaphysical world we don’t necessarily see. Today science may come across as having more solid evidence and grounding than religion because of scientific data that provides a seemingly more detailed overview of life’s complexity. “Einstein once said that the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” (Polkinghorne, 62). Yet, we can still use theories and ideas from both, similar to Ian Barbour’s Dialouge and Integration models, to help us formulate an even more thorough concept of the universe using a human and religious perspective in addition to scientific data.
Therefore, we cannot believe the Bible. Sometimes we are led to believe that true scientist are not Christians or do not believe in God. Yet, this is none but farther from the truth. As we know, the Bible is not a science book, but as of right now, there is no scientific evidence that can prove the Bible to be incorrect. When the Bible makes a statement relating to a scientific principle or fact, it is always accurate. Let us see some examples of how the Bible can coincide with science. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The book of Genesis was written by Moses through the inspiration of God, or the Holy Spirit in about 1500 B.C. In 1820 A.D. Hubert Spencer presented the world with five scientific principles by which, “man may study the unknown.” These principles are time, force, energy, space, and matter (11). Yet, Moses, by inspiration through the Holy Spirit, gave us those scientific principles in the first chapter of Genesis. Let’s break Genesis 1:1 down to show those scientific principles. “In the beginning”---time; “God”—force; “created”—energy; “the heavens”—space; “and the earth”—matter (12). As you can see, all of the principles Spencer presented are in the very first verse of the
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Some feel that scientist are atheists. Some scientists say we still believe in God. St. Thomas answers some questions about faith and science and why faith cannot be tested by the rules of science. In obj.4 he says, “ Because the object of science is something seen, whereas the object of faith is the unseen, as stated above”(258). What he is saying is science is something that has to be seen and proven whereas faith is something as unseen and relies solely on an individual 's beliefs. St. Thomas also says, “ In like manner it may happen that what is an object of vision or scientific knowledge for one man even in the state of wayfarer, is , for another man, an object of faith, because he does not know it by demonstration”(258). Meaning that what one person sees as scientific and fact, can appear to another man as just another sign of faith, faith has no bounds whereas science has boundaries and